Thank you for the offer

This weekend I found myself in a conversation with some people who live up the block from us. One of them, the wife, said she saw Ema get out of the van recently, but didn’t recognize her from her bald head. “How’s everything going?” She said. To be honest, I like being asked this question. For the same reason I enjoy writing about our journey in this blog, I love getting the opportunity to tell our story. It’s therapy for me. It allows me to run through the ordeal in my head, re-examine some of the circumstances, the emotions, and the sequence of events. It keeps the experience fresh in my mind, which for me, is exactly the way I want it to be.

You’re right, I’m not in denial. In fact, if denial WAS a river in Egypt, I’d be on a beach in Australia, or wherever the polar opposite spot of the globe is. I don’t ever want to experience the fear we did at the beginning, but I also don’t ever want to forget it. It’s a strange dichotomy, and one which I don’t expect anyone to understand.

Most of the time my stark realism works well for me in telling Ema’s story, other times, it makes people uncomfortable. During this conversation with the neighbors, I could tell I had the couple’s attention. I’ve told the story enough times to have crafted it into quite an engaging tale. The problem isn’t so much with my delivery, it’s the content. I tend to add in a little too much detail about the leg surgery, the recovery, the medi-port. I don’t do that for shock value, but because I, myself find it fascinating. I suppose it’s the combination of my fascination and obvious grief woven into an inherently uncomfortable subject that makes the story sometimes hard to listen to. Oh well, this is drama folks – hard-edged, real-life, in-your-face reality. I haven’t censored my story yet, and I’m not about to start. I have to be 100% honest with myself, and this also means being just as honest with everyone to whom I share this experience.

When I was done, I looked at both of them and they were quiet. “Did I go overboard? Did I come across too exuberant, too intense? Do they realize I’m done – should I say ‘The End’?” These and a dozen other doubts ran through my mind as I looked at their faces during these few seconds of silence. Then the man looked down at the ground briefly and back up to his wife’s face. She kept looking at me, and it was then I saw her eyes were starting to shimmer. “Oh God, I’d gone too far, I didn’t mean to make anyone cry here!” I smiled, and said – “Hey, but we’ve got today – right?” Which is the circumstantial equivalent of “Hey, how ‘bout them Dodgers?” She blinked – no tears, good. “If there’s anything at all we can do for you guys, please, please let us know.” Her husband nodded in approval, and I smiled. “Thank you,” I said. “I know when people make offers like this that they mean it, and this means so much to Ema and I.”

We’ve been fortunate enough to give that response dozens of times over the past six months. Usually it’s followed up by “We don’t need anything right now that I can think of, but we’ll be sure to let you know.” Fact is, we have every intention of taking advantage of these offers if the time ever comes when we need to. We pray every day that these times don’t come. Real need equates to real trouble in our minds. If the bad times ever do come, the times when we truly need people’s help, then I’ll be speed dialing everyone who has ever offered. Until then, we prefer to do most things on our own. If nothing else, it’s a way of saving all these offers in a reserve for days which we hope we’ll never see.